


Pin

by Argyle



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-11
Updated: 2011-06-11
Packaged: 2017-10-20 08:07:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Argyle/pseuds/Argyle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles thinks they're really getting somewhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pin

"More?" Charles pours a fat finger of single malt into Erik's glass, and it's only after he's recapped the decanter and slid a bishop into striking position that he meets Erik's eye. There's curiosity there, and mirth. He thinks they're really getting somewhere. "Well?"

"There are names for men like you," says Erik. He shifts his knight up the board, bypassing the bishop's path to take a pawn.

"Brilliant? Charming?" And then, again: _Well?_

"Optimistic."

"From the French, and the Latin before. In German--" pawn takes knight "--to give a rough translation..." Charles trails off. Looks up.

Erik is smiling at him, and slightly, so slightly, Charles feels a shiver pass through him. The St. Christopher medallion (a rather tatty silver number; a relic from his mother's youth) which hangs on a thin chain beneath his vest begins to warm. But not grow hot. It's simply the heat it would take on after a minute or two tucked in one's palm, or after being exposed to evening sunlight. The touch of it against his too-cool skin is beguiling and, yes, certainly intimate: save for Raven, no one knows he wears such a thing.

And now, Erik. Of course. Charles stifles the urge to touch it, paw at it, ineffectual above his clothes.

Instead, he sets his fingers to his temple, reaches out--

Erik's mind is open to him, or as open as it can be. There are some places, Charles knows, that Erik has buried with such crude swipes as to all but vanquish them. These are where Charles goes now. He skirts a rough patch of memory, stones stacked to cover a spring, and uncovers... What, exactly?

"Charles." Erik lets the name drop aloud, deliberate and heavy.

And Charles' eyes droop shut a little. He sees Erik as a boy, no more than eleven, dirt staining his knees and elbows but not his pale skin, sees him leaning against a stack of hops crates that had been abandoned in the alleyway, pressing close to another boy, Martin Richter (Charles knows), who is only six months older than Erik, but an inch taller than him and quite as wiry. It's April, and damp, and the air is still cold. Erik is whispering something--

Charles breathes in. Opens his eyes. Erik is stooped before him, a hand on each of Charles' knees. His eyes are a bit red, though that was true before. The scotch.

And Erik's breath still smells of it, smoky and alive; his mouth tastes of it.

Charles reaches forward, rising slightly from his chair to first push his fingers through Erik's hair, toying with the fine, short strands at his nape, and then bringing his hands round again to stroke Erik's throat and delve just beneath the collar of his turtleneck, relishing the warmth of him.

With that, Erik lets out a sharp, "Oh," and wrestles his tongue farther into Charles' mouth. He's busy undoing Charles' top shirt buttons, and it's all Charles can do to wrench free from Erik's reach long enough to at once yank off his waistcoat, shirt, and vest, over-handing the lot into a far corner of the study. Eric runs his hands up Charles' smooth chest, not stopping until he reaches the medallion (warmer now), thumbing the care-worn surface.

"Superstitious, Charles?" Erik breathes. He arches a brow -- or almost. His brow knits up on itself: Charles has Erik's zip undone and is snaking through his y-fronts to take Erik's cock in his hand. Erik swears, " _Du Miststück_ ," but the sound of it is louder in his mind, and Charles shakes his head, wonderingly.

 _It's nothing, really_ , he thinks. _Just a trinket._

 _Sentimental. Yes._

Charles leaves it at that. He leans farther forward, nearly toppling the chair out from underneath him. "Um," he pants. "Shall we?"

Suddenly all business, Erik pulls back, neatly divesting himself of turtleneck (no vest, Charles notes), and then with quick hands, drops his belt and trousers. And again Charles notes this: Erik has already shed his boots and socks.

A smirk threatens to play across Erik's mouth. "You pick up a thing or two."

"Yes?" Charles is up from the chair, shedding his own trousers and y-fronts, but he sets them on the floor a bit more carefully. He smiles, too widely. He knows. It's reckless, all of this. But Erik is here and real, and thus far, no amount of Charles' bad pickup lines have threatened to pull Erik off his course.

In a moment, Erik is close again. He runs his mouth down Charles' jawline, down to his earlobe, nibbling a little, not hard, but enough to make Charles lean into Erik's embrace.

Charles takes one of Erik's nipples between thumb and forefinger, eliciting a low groan from the other man. He moves his free hand up Erik's chest, not daring to linger over the innumerable scars, then shifts down and around so that his palm is pressed to the small of Erik's back.

 _Come here,_ says Charles. He guides Erik to what is undoubtedly the room's most comfortable rug, if only by way of being the _only_ rug: a sanguine, Turkish monstrosity imported by his mother sometime before the war.

Erik picks up on Charles' half-hidden grimace. _Don't be ridiculous_ , he thinks, crouching and then sitting down, and he pulls Charles' hand to hurry him along.

The rug is rough on Charles' bare skin, but then he's thinking only of skin, and Erik's heat all around him, breath and sweat and bones. Erik sidles up to Charles' side, steadying his whole weight with one arm. Charles looks him in the eye, nods, and Erik spits into his palm before taking both their cocks together in his hand, stoking them at once, slowly at first, before swiping his well-calloused thumb over the reddened tips.

Charles can feel his whole body responding. _Christ_ , he pants, out of breath even in the limitless expanse of his own mind. It's really too much, it's almost--

"Charles," says Erik. His eyes are closed, or nearly: dark slits watch the smooth movement of his fist. "You can..."

With a shudder, Charles raises a hand, dashing the damp hair from Erik's forehead before letting it settle, fingers to the side of Erik's head and thumb lightly held beneath his eye.

And they're together, truly. Erik's pace quickens, and Charles' hips thrust forward involuntarily, ragged, his thoughts spiraled with Erik's, and it's so dark, but warm where he wills it. He thinks Erik may be laughing, low and amazed.

Charles comes at last. This is what he's thinking: a river bisecting green woods; toast with good butter; an old novel, dogeared and dear. And Erik, the first time he saw him, red and intent, mad with exertion.

And Erik, now, momentarily unraveled. Still red. He puffs out a jagged breath, his grip loosening before he lets himself and Charles go, and then he collapses by Charles' side. He looks at his sticky hand. "Ugh," he says, not unhappily.

"From the Latin," says Charles, blinking. He absentmindedly runs a hand over his forehead, pushing the hair away. "Um. What was I saying?"

Erik closes his eyes. Shakes his head.

Charles watches him for a moment, the steadying of his breath, the now too-bright light splayed on his frame. "Erik," he says, after a while.

"Mm?"

"We should probably tidy up a bit. The students..."

"Know well enough to stay away, I should think."

Another beat. "And before?" Charles chances. "What did you tell him that day in the alley?" He means this: Martin Richter, the boy in Erik's memory.

Erik opens one eye. Looks at Charles skeptically. "Why does it matter?"

Maybe it doesn't. But that won't help Erik. "Just curious," Charles says instead.

"Can't you just take a look around and find out?"

"I could."

"But?"

Charles leans up on his side. Erik meets his gaze finally, fully.

"I'll return," says Erik. Charles isn't sure whether he believes him, but for the moment, it's enough.


End file.
